The Poor Clare Sisters’ community in Galway has launched a fundraising appeal to pay for renovating their monastery at Nun’s Island. The appeal will involve a ‘buy-a-brick’ scheme in which bricks for the convent refurbishment willl be sold for €10 from the convent, the Augustinian church in Galway and other outlets.
The Poor Clare order has had a presence in the city from 1642 and now needs some €700,000 to refurbish their ‘Extern Convent’ where the nuns, who are contemplatives, make contact with the outside world.
The Poor Clares’ main convent in Galway was erected in 1825 and the ‘Extern Convent’ added in 1895.
The convent is a listed building but the order has been given planning approval to alter it so that the reception area will be based in the extern part.
The community’s mother abbess, Sr. Collette, said last week that their extern convent had been due to be repaired for some years but they decided to concentrate on renovating the main part of their convent complex.
The building is said to be damp and need rewiring and the ‘parlours’ in which visitors are met will be moved from the main building to the extern building.
Sr Colette said there was a legend surrounding the ringing of the convent bells that the nuns did it when they were hungry but this was untrue and the bell was rung at Mass times.
“Another legend is that we dig our own graves, that’s also false,” she added.
She said she and her colleagues devoted their lives to prayer, and felt that they are an integral part of the city. “We belong to the city, as much as the city belongs to us,” she remarked.
The Poor Clares dedicate themselves to prayer and their only source of income is making altar breads.
They have their own vegetable plot from which they produce some of their own food. “We have one bicycle that we share to cycle around the garden but they broke it last month, one of the sisters cycled it into another sister and buckled the front wheel,” she joked.
While they do not watch TV and rarely read the newspapers, they watch movies, play music and sing over Christmas, she said.
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